'The Tiffin Box': Indian cooking made easy

Michelle Peters-Jones says spicy and exotic Chicken Vindaloo is an easy and delicious introduction to Indian cooking.

Photograph by: Greg Southam
, Edmonton Journal

There are a lot of food blogs out there, but every so often you will find a particularly good fit. Such is my relationship with The Tiffin Box, a blog by Edmonton Indian food aficionado, cooking instructor Michelle Peters-Jones.

The blog features original recipes inspired by the author's Indian heritage. Its photographs are inspiring and the recipes are relatively easy to recreate.

I also just plain love the name of the blog. A tiffin box is an Indian lunch box, says Peters-Jones, usually made up of three insulated layers stuffed with different items, from dal to rotis to rice. She remembers the tiffin box as a kind of community table, the source of chatter and sharing. That's also her goal for the website.

"I want to make food accessible," says the mother of five-year-old daughter Aditi. "I like to keep the recipes authentic, but I want the ingredients to be found in Edmonton."

Peters-Jones says people think Indian food is complicated, because so many different spices and spice combinations are required. But it's possible to simplify.

"The best investment you can make if you are making Indian food is a spice grinder, and they are not expensive," she says.

Peters-Jones came to Edmonton from Britain three years ago with her husband, Kevin Jones, an academic at the University of Alberta.

In Britain, she had won a competition to be a contestant on a popular British TV program called Master Chef, and had a lot of requests for her recipes after the show aired. Someone suggested she take up food blogging.

At the same time, Peters-Jones began to connect with Edmonton food culture through Twitter. Soon, she was sharing her food ideas with others. It was the tiffin box, all over again.

Now she teaches cooking classes with local chef Kathryn Joel of Get Cooking, and posts stories and recipes to her blog four to six times a month.

RECIPES

Indian Spiced Cauliflower

Serves 4 as a side dish

1 tbsp (15 mL) unscented oil, such as canola

1 medium onion, diced

1/2 tsp (5 mL) whole cumin seeds

1 tomato, diced

2 garlic cloves, chopped fine

1 ½ tsp (7 mL) Madras curry powder

1 tsp (5 mL) salt

1 half head of cauliflower, broken into florets

1/4 cup (50 mL) hot water

In a large pan, heat the oil.

On medium to high heat, saute the onion and the whole cumin seeds, until the onion is soft and just turning brown around the edges, about 5 to 7 minutes.

Add the diced tomato, garlic, Madras curry powder and salt, and stir and fry together for about 3 to 5 minutes, until the tomato is very squishy and the mixture is beginning to dry out.

Add the cauliflower to this onion-tomato mixture, and stir to coat the florets well, around 1 to 2 minutes. Add the hot water, stir, then cover the pan, and let the cauliflower cook for about 5 to 8 minutes in the steam.

The time depends on how soft you like your vegetables.

Once the cauliflower is cooked, take off the heat, stir again, and serve hot with rice, roti or naan and a lime or mango pickle.

Chicken Vindaloo

(Vindalho de Galinha)

To learn more about this dish, visit The Tiffin Box, where Michelle Peters-Jones talks about its history. Serves 4.

2 lbs (1 kg, about 6) chicken thighs, skinned, trimmed and either left whole, or cut into two pieces each (depending on size)

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